Category Archives: Shoulder Pain

Pain In The Left Side Of Your Upper Shoulder And Neck

Why do I have pain in upper back — Pain in upper back and shoulder

If you have pain in the left side of your upper shoulder and neck, right about where they meet, guess what the cause might be?

Sure it’s muscles, most likely. But why are they complaining?

1. Do you type? Do you sit facing toward the right while you are at the computer? The best way is to face the monitor or your material squarely in front of your nose.

2. Do you always watch the television from an angle? Or sit in the same corner of the same couch with your head tilted? How about changing position so you look directly and straight at the television or book?

3. Do you sleep on your side with your head tilted either up or down? You can prop your neck and head in a more neutral position to avoid neck muscle strain.

4. Do you tuck the phone Continue reading Pain In The Left Side Of Your Upper Shoulder And Neck →

Shoulder Blade Pain, Shoulder Pain, Upper Back Pain

How To Get Rid Of Pain On The Lower Half Of Your Shoulder Blade

August 6 Kathryn Merrow Leave a comment

This post will help you get rid of the pain on the lower half of your shoulder blade naturally. It explains about muscles and how they cause pain and how you can do your own therapy! (That link will take you to another of my natural pain relief websites.)

Is your pain on the bottom half of the shoulder blade and on the outer side of the shoulder blade near the armpit? Then this article is for you.

If doing a movement with your arm in front of your body makes it the pain in your back worse, this article is for you.

Just click on the link and you will understand why you have pain on the lower outer edge of your shoulder blade and how to get rid of it naturally.

If you also have miserable knots in your upper back that you want gone forever, just click here: Knots In Your Back Gone!

Shoulder Pain, Upper Back Muscle Knots, Upper Back Pain

Burning Pain Between Your Spine And Shoulder Blade

July 15 Kathryn Merrow 20 Comments

Do you have burning pain on one or both sides of your spine? Does it look like one of the red pain patterns on the right side of the picture? It may be the trapezius muscle. As you see, there is one on each half of your body.

The trapezius muscles can cause pain on the tops of the shoulders, near the spine, on the inner side of the shoulder blade toward the spine and even on the back of your skull!

This picture shows trigger points. The trigger points are indicated by the X‘s. Those are the places to apply pressure (approximately) in order to get rid of the red areas. The red areas indicate painful areas.

If your shoulder pain pattern is approximately where any of the the red is in the picture, applying pressure to the appropriate X may help get rid of the pain between your spine and shoulder blade!

Here are directions Continue reading Burning Pain Between Your Spine And Shoulder Blade →

Self Help, Shoulder Pain, Upper Back Pain

Tight Shoulders? Here are 6 Ways to Help Your Shoulders Relax

June 30 Kathryn Merrow Leave a comment

Tight muscles in your shoulders? Here are six things you can do to help your poor shoulders feel better.

Get out of stressful situations! 🙂 Well, as much as you can.
Lift your shoulders and roll them backward. Up and back. Up and back.
Hike your shoulders up to your ears. Hold them there for 20 seconds. That will cause them to fatigue or be tired. Let them drop.
Throw a baseball or softball. That uses the shoulders in a balanced way and helps the muscles relax.
Toss rocks into a pond. See if you can make the rocks skip. This uses your shoulder muscles and distracts your mind.
Place ice packs on the tops of your shoulders. Leave them there until you start to feel numbness. The cold packs will help your muscles relax by bringing in more blood.

It’s helpful if you can figure out what caused your shoulders to tighten up in the first place. Most often it’s posture.

People often say, “It’s stress.” Stress can be a part of it because we assume certain positions when we feel stressed.

Still, most often it’s posture.

Work at lifting your chest and the crown of your head. If you have a “flat” lower back work on sticking your butt out a little. You are supposed to have a slight curve behind your waist, like a toddler.

And, after all, your shoulders are attached to your back.

Try any of the six ways to help your shoulders relax and let me know which works best for you!

And if you need more help for your tight shoulders, check out Knots In Your Back Gone!

Self Help, Shoulder Pain, Stress, Upper Back Muscle Knots

How Does Stress Cause Knots in Your Shoulder Muscles

June 28 Kathryn Merrow Leave a comment

Do you know that stress can cause muscle knots in your upper back? It’s true. Read on…

Do you remember the science fiction suspense television series called The Twilight Zone?

Let’s enter now into the Twilight Zone of Knots In Your Back.

Host Rod Serling often said “Imagine this”: (So, Imagine this:)

You are driving. Traffic is moving fast. Big trucks are all around, weaving in and out.

Other drivers are tail-gating.

The sun is hitting the car windows ahead of you and blasting right into your eyes. The driver behind you is blaring his horn.

You are almost out of gas and have no money to get more!

Do you feel your shoulders lifting and tightening up yet?

The other muscles to tighten would be your jaw and neck. Your head moves forward; your chin juts out.

You have mental stress when you are in a tight situation like the heavy traffic. Mental stress causes changes in the way you hold your body so your muscles contract–they become tight.

Tight muscles cause discomfort. Bodies just don’t like to be all bound up.

And if you keep your stress posture long enough–shoulders hiked, jaw tight–your chest muscles will tighten and shorten, too. In fact, maybe they already are short and tight just because of the day to day positions your work in.

That, in a nutshell, is an example of how stress can cause knots in your shoulders.

I don’t want to leave you all stressed-up like that so here’s a little meditation for you…

Imagine this:

The weather is perfect. A soft breeze kisses your cheeks and the setting sun is warming your skin perfectly.

Birds are lining the rustling trees, making their sleepy noises, settling in for the night. The moon is rising and the sky is becoming rosy and then indigo.

A million stars are twinkling overhead and the cooler breeze is lulling you to sleep. You can fall asleep easily and rest well.

There is always enough…

Meditation is one way to relieve stress. There are other easy, self-help ways to start to reduce your physical stress so you can more easily deal with day-to-day stresses at Knots In Your Back.

When your body has more muscular ‘balance’ (like a toddler does) it reduces body stress and pain and lessens mental stress. It’s like peeling stressful layers off one at a time.

Toddlers: No stress. No muscle knots. 🙂

You can get rid of the stressful muscle knots in your shoulders!

Your smart body wants to be well.

Shoulder Pain

Pain In Your Shoulder Joint–What Causes Pain In Your Shoulder?

June 22 Kathryn Merrow Leave a comment

There are many causes of shoulder joint pain. Of course, the most common cause is muscles. If the muscles in your neck, chest, back or anywhere in the shoulder area are out-of-balance (that means tighter on one side than the other) that can cause pain in your shoulder.

When you look at pictures of a shoulder skeleton you will see that without muscles the whole thing would just fall apart.

Muscles hold skeletons together and they move bones.

Muscles cross over joints. They attach one bone to another. That’s how we are able to move. A muscle moves the bone when we contract (shorten) the muscle.

The muscles of the shoulder area can become out-of-balance and they can also develop trigger points.

Trigger points are areas of specialized tightness that are very irritable. The irritable places can cause pain nearby or at a far distance.

Trigger points can make it hard to move your arm, shoulder or shoulder blade properly and so can muscles that are too strong on one side and too weak on the other (out-of-balance.)

Your shoulder has four muscles that are called the rotator cuff muscles.

One is packed onto the lower outside 2/3’s of your shoulder blade (infraspinatis.)
One is packed into the top of the shoulder blade (supraspinatis.)
One is sandwiched between your shoulder blade and your ribs (subscapularis.)
The fourth is on the outer side of your shoulder blade and attaches to your arm (terres.)

The rotator cuff muscles keep your arm bone in the socket and allow you to rotate your upper arm.

But those are not the only muscles that can cause shoulder joint pain. Others can, too.

Sometimes Continue reading Pain In Your Shoulder Joint–What Causes Pain In Your Shoulder? →

Shoulder Pain

Two Most Common Causes Of Frozen Shoulder

June 5 Kathryn Merrow Leave a comment

If it’s become hard to lift your arm you may have a “frozen shoulder.”

The muscles around the shoulder joint can go into spasm and prevent the natural movement of your arm. That’s why it’s called “frozen shoulder.”

If you didn’t hurt to lift your arm yesterday but it suddenly does today–or if you became unable to raise your arm following an injury or fall–there’s a good chance that muscles are causing the restriction in your range of motion (rather than the joint itself).

The deltoid muscle is a common culprit. It is at the top of your arm. It is the cap muscle. You can treat it by seeking tender areas of muscle and pressing, massage or pinching them.

The subscapularis is another common culprit. It can be treated by pressing into it. It is sandwiched between your ribs and your shoulder blade so the pressure has to go between the back ribs and the shoulder blade. It’s usually accessed near the armpit.

The subscap (for short) is not easy to press into yourself but you can still do some self-help like this:

Get down on all fours and pretend you are a lion and lift and roll your shoulder blades as you ‘walk’ like a lion. Doing this will help stretch the subscap. Roll those shoulder blades!

When I fell backward years ago (before I got into this field and know what I know now) I woke the next morning and was unable to lift my arm.

I went to physical therapy for Continue reading Two Most Common Causes Of Frozen Shoulder →

SIMPLE BACK PAIN RELIEF